


The Subtle Grace of Gravity

by DetectiveJoan



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: /shows up to this fandom three months late with starbucks, Adultery, Amnesia, Character Study, Coda, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, but the starbucks is the jack mormon non-caffeinated beverage equivalent of a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 04:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveJoan/pseuds/DetectiveJoan
Summary: Doug's body remembers things his mind can't.





	The Subtle Grace of Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "[You are the Moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpUP0jjicqY)" by The Hush Sound

He spends twenty minutes the first day rolling a pencil between his thumb and forefinger, unable to figure out why something about the weight of it feels  _ wrong _ until Lovelace puts her hand over his, leans in close, and says, “Why in the name of God do you keep looking at that thing like it has personally insulted your mother.”

She doesn’t say it like a question, which is good because Doug couldn’t even guess at an answer.

He runs his tongue over his teeth. Something about them feels wrong, too.

“He’s wishing it was a cigarette,” Hera pipes up. “Eiffel did the same thing for a month after Minkowski confiscated his first pack.”

It makes sense that losing his memory wouldn’t somehow cure his addictions. That also explains the way something in his chest seems to settle when he takes a sip of coffee, loaded down with what Hera assures him is his preferred amount of sugar. But there are other things that are less easily explained.

After Renée wakes up and finishes setting the course, Jacobi points out that they should think about going into cryo-sleep for the rest of the journey; Doug reflexively gags at the suggestion. He doubles over, hands on his knees, and coughs up nothing but the taste of bile. If he’d had anything to eat yet that morning, he’s certain he’d be throwing it up right about now.

And that? Doesn’t make any sense.

Renée soothingly rubs a hand between his shoulder blades, and then up the back of his neck and into his hair. “Whoa, hey, Doug, it’s alright,” she says, and it’s the softest he’s heard anyone speak in his four days of memory. “You just have to go under one time, and then you’ll wake up when we’re back to Earth. It’ll be okay.”

He wipes his mouth on his forearm. He’s shaking all over. “Anyone wanna share why the thought of cryo is making me sick to my stomach?” he asks.

Renée sighs, and he knows there’s a story here that she had hoped she wouldn’t have to tell him. She scratches at his scalp softly, and the weight of it feels so familiar. 

Has she touched him like this before? Or is he remembering the motion of someone else’s hand?

Everyone agrees, in the end, that he shouldn’t go under until his hand is better. Cryo is great for stasis, which sometimes means it can disrupt the healing process. Of course, he’s pretty sure his hand should be taking a matter of months to heal up, but everyone assures him it’ll be back to normal within the week. 

“One of the better side effects of having all that alien blood in your system,” Jacobi says, and Doug still can’t believe they aren’t all pulling his leg on that one. “Probably the only reason Minkowski survived that gut shot, too.”

Doug walks in on her in the medbay the day after everyone else goes into cryo. She’s spread out on the single bed, a picture of contrasts; the white gauze and medical tape she’s carefully peeling off her brown skin, revealing dark purple bruises and the deep red of dried blood, all framed between her black shorts and sports bra.

Doug is, uh, not proud of the way his body reacts to certain parts of that image. Mostly the long, bare legs and the intense look of concentration. The sheen of sweat on her chest. Actually, everything about her chest.

Okay, so it turns out he’s a healthy, red-blooded American. No reason to be surprised by that. 

A smarter man would probably retreat, but Doug hasn’t gotten the impression that “smart” is a word anyone would have ever used to describe him, so he forges ahead. 

By the time Renée finishes pulling off the old bandages, she’s panting heavily and looks like she’s about to pass out again. It’s not hard to convince her to let him help out. He cleans off the dried blood as gently as he can, but she still wraps a hand around his upper arm and grips it like a vice everytime he uses just a bit too much pressure.

He has to consciously remind himself not to put his hands on any other part of her skin. 

There are fingernail marks in his arm by the time he’s done securing a fresh bandage over what’s left of the wound. She exhales like she’d been holding her breath the whole time, and her entire body seems to go boneless as she sinks into the mattress with a low moan. 

“Thanks, Doug,” she says. “That took more out of me than I thought it would. I’m just gonna. Sleep for another couple of days.”

And then she’s out.

Later that night, with some slight soreness the last vestige of his injury, he discovers that his hands have plenty of muscle memory when it comes to jerking off. Who’s to say whether or not the feature of Renée (her hands, her mouth, her  _ legs, Jesus Christ _ ) in his fantasy is new.

He’s on the treadmill a week later — he doesn’t  _ love _ working out, but his other option was to spend the evening with a book, which he can’t ever seem to get his brain to focus on for more than a few minutes — when Renée comes in wearing the same impossibly minimal ensemble.

It’s a good thing his legs can work without any input from him, because his whole brain goes offline at the sight of her chest jutting out when she puts her hands on her hips and rolls her shoulders back like that.

“To quote you in a former life,” she grins, “guess who’s all un-Humpty Dumpty’d.” 

Her long fingers are spread in a way that invites him to look at her fully healed stomach. There’s no laceration, no stitches, no blood or bruises. There’s still a scar, but it’s incongruously small, and if someone told him it would heal itself out of existence by tomorrow morning, he’d probably believe them.

“That’s great,” he says with all the enthusiasm he can express while out of breath.

In the time it takes him to shut off the treadmill, Renée cross the room and steps up on the walking belt behind him. She’s barefoot, and crowded inside his personal bubble in a way that is giving him an unobstructed view straight down her bra. He swallows and tries to keep his eyes on her face.

“This means we don’t have any more excuses not to go into cryo,” she says, looking up at him with the widest eyes he’s maybe ever seen. “What d’you say to keeping a lady company during her last free night in space?”

He licks his lips but manages to take a small step back. “Aren’t you married?” he says.

He knows she is. Hera had told him as much, and then he’d read her personnel file to double check, and then he’d spent the entire last week repeating it in his mind to prevent himself from doing something monumentally stupid like coming on to his attractive-as-fuck commanding officer.

Renée actually laughs. “Doug, Goddard Futuristics told my husband I was dead. On the list of things I’m gonna have to explain to him, you don’t even rank.”

She wraps her fingers around his wrists and guides his hands to her waist, then trails her own hands up his arms until she’s wrapped around his shoulders. He pulls her closer without thinking, and then they’re kissing; it feels so easy, so comfortable and relaxed and  _ practiced, _ and it still just about knocks him over.

“We’ve done this before,” he says as soon as the realization hits him.

Her mouth quirks into a smile. “Once or twice.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is also [on tumblr](http://detectivejoan.tumblr.com/post/172573576984/the-subtle-grace-of-gravity)!


End file.
